Washington – The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Thursday that “Dubai cannot be trusted” to manage U.S. ports because of what he called its long record of assisting the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., vowed after a hearing to reverse a $6.8 billion ports deal expected to be completed today. He also said he will push legislation to block a second Dubai company’s efforts to acquire two U.S. plants that manufacture precision components for military aircraft and tank engines.

A Washington Post report Thursday of Dubai International Capital’s $1.2 billion acquisition of the London-based precision manufacturer Doncasters Group Ltd. and its U.S. defense plants further roiled an issue that White House and congressional GOP leaders had hoped would subside.

That deal, now under a national-security investigation by the Bush administration, was cited by lawmakers from both parties as evidence that the process used to review a foreign company’s purchase of U.S. assets is broken. The issue exploded last month after the administration approved, with no national-security inquiry, Dubai Ports World’s acquisition of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. and its management operations at six U.S. ports.

Political leaders had hoped DP World’s request Sunday for a 45-day national-security investigation of the deal would cool political tempers, but it has not.

“While I strongly support our open investment policy and recognize that it is vital to our national economic interest, I do not believe it should stand at any cost,” Senate banking committee chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., told administration officials Thursday. “Everything in this country can’t be for sale.”

Stung by such charges, the administration’s secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States opened an inquiry this week into Dubai International Capital’s purchase of Doncasters, taking the unusual step of notifying congressional committees to head off another political flap.

But lawmakers – virtually all of whom learned of the second inquest in the newspaper – were not assuaged. Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., whose district includes a Doncasters plant in Rincon, Ga., called for making security investigations mandatory for all pending and future foreign acquisitions of U.S. businesses involved in international transportation or defense contracting.

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